Assessing and augmenting SCADA cyber security: a survey of techniques

SCADA systems monitor and control critical infrastructures of national importance such as power generation and distribution, water supply, transportation networks, and manufacturing facilities. The pervasiveness, miniaturisations and declining costs of internet connectivity have transformed these systems from strictly isolated to highly interconnected networks. The connectivity provides immense benefits such as reliability, scalability and remote connectivity, but at the same time exposes an otherwise isolated and secure system, to global cyber security threats. This inevitable transformation to highly connected systems thus necessitates effective security safeguards to be in place as any compromise or downtime of SCADA systems can have severe economic, safety and security ramifications. One way to ensure vital asset protection is to adopt a viewpoint similar to an attacker to determine weaknesses and loopholes in defences. Such mind sets help to identify and fix potential breaches before their exploitation. This paper surveys tools and techniques to uncover SCADA system vulnerabilities. A comprehensive review of the selected approaches is provided along with their applicability

Automatic instantiation of abstract tests on specific configurations for large critical control systems

Computer-based control systems have grown in size, complexity, distribution and criticality. In this paper a methodology is presented to perform an abstract testing of such large control systems in an efficient way: an abstract test is specified directly from system functional requirements and has to be instantiated in more test runs to cover a specific configuration, comprising any number of control entities (sensors, actuators and logic processes). Such a process is usually performed by hand for each installation of the control system, requiring a considerable time effort and being an error prone verification activity. To automate a safe passage from abstract tests, related to the so called generic software application, to any specific installation, an algorithm is provided, starting from a reference architecture and a state-based behavioural model of the control software. The presented approach has been applied to a railway interlocking system, demonstrating its feasibility and effectiveness in several years of testing experience

Methodology for Designing Decision Support Systems for Visualising and Mitigating Supply Chain Cyber Risk from IoT Technologies

This paper proposes a methodology for designing decision support systems for visualising and mitigating the Internet of Things cyber risks. Digital technologies present new cyber risk in the supply chain which are often not visible to companies participating in the supply chains. This study investigates how the Internet of Things cyber risks can be visualised and mitigated in the process of designing business and supply chain strategies. The emerging DSS methodology present new findings on how digital technologies affect business and supply chain systems. Through epistemological analysis, the article derives with a decision support system for visualising supply chain cyber risk from Internet of Things digital technologies. Such methods do not exist at present and this represents the first attempt to devise a decision support system that would enable practitioners to develop a step by step process for visualising, assessing and mitigating the emerging cyber risk from IoT technologies on shared infrastructure in legacy supply chain systems

A virtual environment to support the distributed design of large made-to-order products

An overview of a virtual design environment (virtual platform) developed as part of the European Commission funded VRShips-ROPAX (VRS) project is presented. The main objectives for the development of the virtual platform are described, followed by the discussion of the techniques chosen to address the objectives, and finally a description of a use-case for the platform. Whilst the focus of the VRS virtual platform was to facilitate the design of ROPAX (roll-on passengers and cargo) vessels, the components within the platform are entirely generic and may be applied to the distributed design of any type of vessel, or other complex made-to-order products

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

Scaling Participation -- What Does the Concept of Managed Communities Offer for Participatory Design?

This paper investigates mechanisms for scaling participation in participatory design (PD). Specifically, the paper focuses on managed communities, one strategy of generification work. We first give a brief introduction on the issue of scaling in PD, followed by exploring the strategy of managed communities in PD. This exploration is underlined by an ongoing case study in the healthcare sector, and we propose solutions to observed challenges. The paper ends with a critical reflection on the possibilities managed communities offer for PD. Managed communities have much to offer beyond mere generification work for large-scale information systems, but we need to pay attention to core PD values that are in danger of being sidelined in the process